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The Great Bonding Hoax

March 26, 2024

The Great Bonding Hoax

Were people misled or did they helpfully misunderstand?

About ten years ago a great whirlwind of marketing was created about a new bonding product.

Something that could reconnect some of the bonds broken by bleaching. This seemed to gift a 'get out of jail free' card to colourists the world over to jet-hose peroxide with gay abandon. Hundreds of other copycat products followed.

The fact is, bonds are broken and reformed all the time in hair; water with heat styling to reshape being the most obvious. Reforming bonds is one thing, replacing lost hair structure that was long ago washed down the plug hole is something else.

And this is where much misunderstanding lies and with our LifeSaver product too. Using the LifeSaver Treatment sporadically will make your hair feel better but doesn't make up for months of neglect. You just start from Day 1 again. Using the product regularly (at least every other shampoo day) helps keep your own hair intact.

If you forget for a month, then a few shampoos after the last use, your hair is again vulnerable to everything the cruel world throws at it and will continue thinning. The hair lost in that period of no protection is not recovered until new hair grows through to replace it. In the same way, brushing teeth once a month doesn't stop receding gums and disease.

When I'm out and about I do look at people's hair. Not in a creepy way 🙈 but because it's what I do . And I see much more off-the-scale damaged hair from clumsy colouring than ten years ago, and on smart stylish people.

I wonder, have they not noticed? Do they think the shrivelled frizzy ends are normal with colouring? Did their colourist have a lobotomy?

All colouring requires great skill, hi-lift tinting and bleaching being the most challenging. But regardless of what the 'Bonding' corporations claim, you actually can have great conditioned hair even with bleaching when applied intelligently, and regular LifeSaver Treatments are applied at home.

All the clients in this blog were using a famous branded bonding product before they discovered us. It clearly wasn't helping. The after pictures show just how much we can recover your hair back to its glorious natural best, when you follow the usage instructions of LifeSaver Treatment.

I love this video and the way Emily has edited it. I think I picked up a bit of ADHD just watching it. 😀

I first started cutting her hair 8 months ago. It was severely over-processed and unnecessarily bleached on top of bleached hair again and again. The resultant thinning and breakage led Emily to have extensions which caused more stress and damage. Emily has naturally healthy thick hair so with proper care there would be no need to resort to extensions to thicken it.

Our LifeSaver Treatment is still the most effective product I know at repairing and protecting bonds.

Poppy was another case of tragic over colouring, heat styling etc. She has been really diligent in using LifeSaver treatments properly these last two years and her hair is now five times thicker and six inches longer.

When I first met Chloe, the ends of her hair were breaking down even just at shoulder length. She's a big fan of LifeSaver Ultra and has used it religiously for eighteen months. You can see why. She finally has the longer hair she wanted and also, much blonder.

"Four years ago I came to Dominican Republic for a holiday and the first picture is how my hair looked within an hour of landing and getting off the plane. It was a nightmare for the whole time we were here and it was the final straw that made me determined to do something about the condition it was in. Humidity is always a challenge and has been for me since I can remember but that holiday it was at its worst. Fast forward to this morning, we landed yesterday afternoon, I’m around 3.5 years in to using the Van Clarke products and I think the pictures speak for themselves. Yes, it’s still affected by the humidity but I’m so pleased that it still bears some semblance of style and shape and the texture and condition is worlds apart! I feel my experiment is complete, I never doubted the benefits of this range of products but to make a side by side comparison is the cherry on top for me! 🏝️😎💁🏼‍♀️"

Yvonne has just sent us these images from her holiday in the Tropics. What a beautiful change in four years. Life's trajectory means that after age twentyish it's downhill for hair. You have to invest more to maintain the condition. But if you're not getting the benefit of your natural best we can take you back ten years even in terms of hair quality. How nice is that!

 Michael Van Clarke



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